18 



and improved by tlio four who wore associated t();^ethor and who w<io owners of the 

 main part of the estate, from which U)t.s were sohl off as fast as settlers cauio in ; the 

 ■whole estate is now worked in small farms. The 400 acres left with the mansion-house 

 is now divided into five or six lots <u- farms. We conunenced our farming imi)rove- 

 nients by moderately deep plowing, thorouglily done, using guano freely as a 

 fertilizer to conunence with, in order to get straw and other vegetable matter with 

 which to make other iertili/.iiig materials to follow. But we find lime to be the 

 cheapest and most enduring feitilizer we can employ, after getting vegetabh; matter 

 into the soil. Our general I'arming is a rotation of corn, potatoes, or oats, and wheat, 

 then grass, which latter, with corn, are the principal crops. We have considerable land 

 devoted to snuill fruits and orchards and nursery, which we fiud more ]irofital)le here- 

 away than general farming. While a cro[) of wlieat will only yield Vj to 30 bushels to 

 the acre, worth $1 to $1 {JO per bushel, or $30 to .|-10 per acre, a crop of straw- 

 berries, or other snuill fruits, will yield frcnn $100 to f^2b0 per acre. Orcharding 

 I c(nisider to be profitable. We have numy hundred apple and peach trees. The 

 apple orchards are most of them too young to show what is the best they can do, 

 but, from our experience thus far, I believe apple-raising will be cpiite renuinera- 

 tive. The fruit in most instances is very fine. I have exanuned, studied, and experi- 

 mented much the past twenty-live years to ascertain the kinds best adapted to our 

 climate, soil, and other circumstances, and think I have succeeded wil-h a list suf- 

 ficiently large for all practical juuposes. Tlie people of this region have been hereto- 

 fore misled, particularly with winter or long-keeping varieties, having obtained their 

 trees from the North and planted such varieties as are po[)ular there, (and the fruit 

 from which they have eateu here imported from there,) which has proved a failure 

 when grown here. We fiud varieties originating here and south of us to be the 

 proper varieties for long keeping; we therefore obtain such varieties from trees orig- 

 inating here, and in North and JSouth Carolina and Georgia, such as the Abram, Milam, 

 Lind)ertwig, Rawle's Janet, Prior's Red, Meade's Keeper, ami Boling'sSweet, of Virginia; 

 the Wine-Sop and York Impeiial, of Pennsylvania, have an equally high meed of jtraise; 

 the Cullasaga, of South Carolina, and several others of less note, and still less known, 

 of North Carolina and Georgia. Last, not least, is pear culture, which succeeds most 

 admirably in our soil and climate ; and the old varieties, which seem to have run out 

 as by exhaustion in more northern latitudes, succeed here to admiration. I will give 

 you a list of such as I tind to be very desirable, viz: Bartlett, Seckel, White Doyenne, 

 (Butter, Virgalieu, St. Michael's, of the North,) Duchess d'Angoulenie, Louise Bonne de 

 Jersey, Flemish Beauty, Buerre de Anjou, and many others of nearly the same claima 

 for superiority. 



SWAMP-LAND RECLAMATIOx\. 



Tlie work of reclaiming overflowed or swamp lauds is progressing in 

 California. A mine of wealth is opened in such improvements, by which 

 lands obtained at the average rates of Government sales of public lands 

 of all grades are transformed, at an expense usually uot exceeding five 

 dollars per acre, into the richest and most manageable of tillable areas, 

 Laving the added advantage of ahnost i)erpetual sunshine above, and a 

 never-failing supply of water beneath, securing results iu production 

 almost unexampled. Information lias been received of the organization 

 of a com])any of San Francisco cai)italists who have pun-hased 40,000 

 acres at the northwest end of Lake Tulare, in Tulare County, at $2 50 

 per acre, and will immediatel}- inaugurate measures for its reclamation. 

 Negotiations for 2o,()00 acres adjoining are also in j)rocess. 



Marsh and tide lands in Alameda have been sold to the value of 

 $40,080. The overflowed lands on the eastern shore of San Francisco 

 amount to 20,000 acres. 



In Contra. Costa County, on the south bank of the west channel ot 

 San Joaquin liiver, a strip of low lands 25 miles long, requiring a levee 

 only on one side, contains 15,000 acres, valued at -flOO per acre. On a 

 portion of this tract 25,000 sheep have been grazing; another portion 

 (of 10,(100 acres) has pastured 11,000 head ot cattle, and weekly ship- 

 ments of beeves have recently been made from it to San Francisco. It 

 is believed there that six to nine tons of lucern can be produced per 



